{"product_id":"9780271099682","title":"Father Chaucer and the Apologists","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn May 4, 1380, Cecily Chaumpaigne filed a quitclaim with the Chancery in Westminster, releasing the poet Geoffrey Chaucer from any prosecution \u003cem\u003ede raptu meo\u003c\/em\u003e (on account of my rape). This legal document, lost for centuries, has haunted Chaucer studies since its rediscovery in 1873.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver the past 150 years since it reemerged, many Chaucer scholars have sought to discount, sanitize, or excuse the release. Through a careful examination of the long Chaucer historiography, Sarah Baechle shows how critics have read the question of Chaucers potential culpability for rape through prevailing attitudes toward sexual violence. They did so, moreover, in ways that will be very familiar to contemporary readers versed in rape culture-practices that dismiss sexual violence by centering and promoting accused perpetrators, erasing or attacking the victim-survivor, and minimizing the violence of the crime. Baechle pairs the necessary excavation of this critical history with reparative readings of the poets narratives of sexual violence, including the \u003cem\u003eMillers Tale\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eReeves Tale\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eWife of Baths Tale\u003c\/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003eTroilus and Criseyde\u003c\/em\u003e, and she theorizes \"assailant speech\" as a counterpart to survivor speech, proposing it as a new means of understanding Chaucers place in feminist studies of the Middle Ages.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFather Chaucer and the Apologists \u003c\/em\u003eis an urgently needed examination of the discourse surrounding Chaumpaignes quitclaim that reveals the ties between Chaucer studies and the persistence of rape culture. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Chaucer and of gender and sexual violence more broadly.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"PENN STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51977154298130,"sku":"9780271099682","price":145.32,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0508\/3093\/4173\/files\/9780271099682.jpg?v=1774737710","url":"https:\/\/bargainbooks.com.au\/products\/9780271099682","provider":"Bargain Books Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}